An Artist Activist Manifesto of Good Art
One world. This is what we know.
One humanity in all its glorious diversity.
Seeking to understand itself. Seeking to survive.
One world.
Under one glorious infinity.
We are part of this infinity.
One great species with all its shades and colors.
Traditions. Beliefs. Hopes. Histories.
Dreams for its children.
And fear. Too much fear of one another.
Of the differences. Of the future.
Fearless, an activist artist:
Envisions wholeness where there is violence, prejudice, intolerance, antagonism.
Weaves together the multiplicities into one chaotic pattern.
Creates a common cloth without destroying the parts.
Lays the parts next to one another compatibly.
Then holds all this hope and mythology with great care, gently.
Preserving it. Hallowing it.
Its remarkable beauty.
Its truth.
Its optimism.
The artwork.
This is the work of this artist activist.
To disparage separations that isolate and starve.
To renounce those exclusions that are cruel: the horrors of war; the oppression of others;
the exploitation of persons and resources; shunning; denigration; lies; abuse; greed; monopoly.
The aim:
To envision, to dream of freedom—Yes—and equality—Yes—and fraternity—Yes—and health.
To hold dear all amongst whom we live—their children, their aged, their infirm, their compromised as ourselves.
To cherish all the other species with which we share this infinity—this eternity—this wonder.
Of which they, we, are integral.
To imagine the eternal as the unending part of all of us and all of this.
This is the work of the artist activist.
Yes. To entertain. Yes. To educate. But always with an intent:
To care. To love. To embrace. To listen. To be silent.
To tender. To be tender. To cherish.
To expose goodness, kindness, and respect,
Along with the horrors of personal and communal traumas.
Yes. To expose the terrible. To rail against it. And the suffering.
But to cry with those who cry.
To share their sorrow. The hurt.
The pain of ignorance, of ego, of class, of nationalism.
To be open-hearted.
And to show the way out, through goodness. To serve the greater good.
To bring all together in goodness as we are in truth all together.
Infinite. Eternal. And yes—also good. And able to bring forth the Art of Goodness.
Good Art.